DENZEL WASHINGTON WALKS THROUGH A BLEACHED AND TINTED LANDSCAPE: STUNNING DRABNESS, EMOTIONAL POVERTY

Keeper of the Book

The Book of Eli (by the Hughes brothers, who directed Menace II Society and Dead Presidents) is a bleached-out apocalyptic tale like The Road, but more of just a Hollywood movie. That's not to say it's without merit. Its monochrome imagery is occasionally stunning. Its hero played by Denzel Washington is mysterious and noble and the story has an O.Henry-style ending that may catch you off guard. That title itself is a key to the puzzle that makes sense only when all the other pieces are in place.

It's instructive to compare The Book of Eli with The Road. The latter may seem drab to those looking for slam-bang adventure, but it has the lion's share of humanity and sense. Both movies concern men wandering across ravaged landscapes at a desperate future time when most of the planet has been scorched. The man in The Road is with his little boy, and the one in Eli picks up a pretty woman. That's a big, important difference. The Road's Man (Viggo Mortensen) is pitiful and vulnerable and touchingly caring, protective, and afraid for his son and for himself. In The Book of Eli Denzel Washington has a solitary dignity, but he has to care about nobody, only the special Book he carries. He is a superhero; in frequent encounters, he is invincible. Using a brace of weaponry he keeps secreted on his person, he wipes out bands of brigands and bad guys in seconds; in a kung fu movie this wouldn't be interesting because he doesn't seem challenged, though the long ringing blade he wields links him with kung fu heroes. The Road is really concerned with what it would be like for ordinary folk to live in the world with everything gone. The Book of Eli is just telling a snappy story of heroes and villains and sexy babes. This difference is why the one is so much more emotionally affecting than the other, though I admit I had been set up to identify and weep with Man and Boy because I had read Cormac McCarthy's very sad, beautiful, and ultimately strangely hopeful novel.

Anyway, both films share a beached-out look but their superficially similar images are themselves different in a key way. The Book of Eli's bleach-and-tint has an obviously lab-polished look. The Road's scenes are grayed-out too, but in a way that's more pale and natural and seems part of the landscape itself, which is depressing rather than stylized. Apart from the sci-fi element it shares with any future tale, The Road is a more realistic story, stripped of all frills. McCarthy just took everything away and set down two desperate, fearful souls upon a barren land where the few other remaining humans were as desperate and afraid as the Man and the Boy but more violent. They're scavenging and surviving, not doing battle against all comers.

The world of The Book of Eli isn't so stripped-down, after all. The people, who in spots are numerous, have water sources, battery electric power, and old cars and trucks that run on fossil fuel, though only for the kingpin who controls them. This is a narrative full of violent encounters, and its look is processed, sepia-tented and stylized, like a music video -- it's elegant, but not real. The sources are obvious as soon as you see all the scruffy bad guys in motorcycle outfits and thick WWI-looking goggles, and then we come to a frontier town with a saloon and a presiding villain: Road Warrior is a major influence in populating the Hughes' world, as well as Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns and Zatoichi.

The presences of Denzel Washongton as the mysterious heroic wanderer (who carries the planet's sole remaining copy of the Bible) and Gary Oldman as Carnegie, the saloon's presiding strongman boss, call to mind all Denzel's past heroic roles and all Gary's bad movies wherein he's the cackling nasty (his laughter doesn't convince, nor does his set of perfect white teeth befit a world that's lacked amenities for thirty years). Both Denzel and Gary have been around the movie block a few too many times by now. Having Jennifer Beal and Mila Kunis on hand doesn't raise the tone much. If this didn't look like a commercial movie already, they'd clinch that. On the other hand relatively minor characters gain tone by having Tom Waits, Michael Gambon, and Frances de la Tour to play them. The Hughes brothers have plenty of talent, and this is a well-made movie.

The writer, Gary Whitta, is ingenious, though his language is pedestrian compared to McCarthy’s, and he has provided more details about the origin of his apocalypse only to reveal his concept’s incoherence. One can only wonder about how the Bible is going to restore a world that’s already blown itself up fighting over religion. If you sit through to the end, however, you will get to see a nice set of tableaux of post-Doomsday San Francisco, beginning with a beat-up Golden Gate Bridge littered with wrecked cars, and then a beautifully jumbled San Francisco skyline like a city turning into a melting sand castle. A colony of survivors welcome Denzel on Alcatraz, ready to repopulate the world with books. Carnegie was an ardent reader, but he only wanted to have the Bible to use it to manipulate people. Sounds vaguely familiar...

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©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.